An anonymous reader writes: The iPlayer is a big thing for the BBC. The BBC boss called it "as significant as the release of colour TV!" Sadly, when it goes on public beta on Friday, it will only work if you have Microsoft everything, ie7, XP, WMP 11 and uses their DRM. The BBC Trust (that oversees all that the BBC does) went as far as saying that it would insist on platform neutrality in a meeting with the Open Source Consortium (OSC) yesterday.